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Damias
Boisduval
Type species: elegans Boisduval, New Guinea.
Synonym: Caprimima Hampson
(type species albicollis Pagenstecher,
New Guinea).
Most Damias species have
distinctive facies with the typical black and red markings on a pure white
ground rather than a yellow one. The forewing apical border is often very broad
and may contain white spots.
Holloway (1984b) suggested that the white ground colour was the only
synapomorphy for the whole genus, but that various facies and male genitalic
characters could be used to recognise three subgroups. Two of these and
miscellaneous other species are more or less restricted to New Guinea and most
diverse in the south eastern peninsula. The only Sundanian species, discussed
below, belongs to the most widespread subgroup of the three, also occurring in
Seram and the Bismarck Is. This group has two white spots at the distal margin
subapically. The aedeagus vesica contains two to three moderate cornuti, and the
saccular process of the valve (referred to as costal by Holloway (1984b), but it
appears to have migrated dorsally in this quartet of genera) is broadened or
bifid subapically, though this latter feature is not apparent in the Sundanian
species.
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